Day of "What th-?"

Look, I don't know if the kid was in. You can eyeball the thing more times than the Zapruder film, from every angle and at every speed, and we'll still never know.

Back, and to the left. The football touched the ground a millisecond before it touched the pylon or it didn't. It's all of a piece, and none of it matters anyway.

That's because Michael Penix dove and stretched and the football broke the plane and down went No. 8 Penn State in Bloomington, In., yesterday, and what was remarkable about that is you could ask "How will Indiana blow it this time?" and get two opposing answers. And both would be correct.

The first answer is that Indiana blew it this time by blowing coverage and letting a Penn State receiver run free for a 60-yard touchdown catch that gave the Nittany Lions the lead with two-and-a-half minutes to play.

Oh, Indiana.

The second answer is the Hoosiers didn't blow it this time, because Penix led them on a 75-yard drive as the clock got skinny, scored on a 1-yard run and then ran it in for the two-point conversion that tied the game and forced overtime.

Then he hit Whop Philyor from nine yards out in OT, after which IU coach Tom Allen essentially said "Screw it, we're gonna win it or lose it right here." So Penix ran and stretched and the ruling on the field -- two points and the win -- was upheld because, well, it was too inconclusive to reverse. And Indiana had the 36-35 upset that rang in the Big Ten season with a bang.

Wow, Indiana.

It was the Hoosiers' first win over a top ten opponent since 1987, and maybe it heralds something and maybe it doesn't. In '87, the Hoosiers' 31-10 win over Ohio State heralded an 8-4 season that ended in a Peach Bowl loss to Tennessee. Bill Mallory was the coach then, and Indiana had its best run of seasons under him, and then he was gone and Indiana went back to being Indiana.

I don't know what's going to happen this time. But I do know Tom Allen is the right man for this job, clearly, and his call to go for the win in OT was absolutely the right call, and he outcoached his opposite number, James Franklin, in this one. And that's because it was Penn State and not Indiana that blew it with the game on the line.

The Nittany Lions blew it with 1:42 to play in regulation, when Allen opted to let Penn State score to get the ball back for one last shot. So the Hoosiers stood aside and Devyn Ford walked into the end zone instead of doing what he should have done, which is trip and fall down. 

Had he done that, Penn State would have simply run out the clock. But he didn't -- and so it was the football royalty that made the bonehead play this time, and not Indiana.

Cooler heads prevailed, in other words. And when's the last time we could say that about an Indiana team playing a top-ten team?

Then again, maybe this was just Indiana tapping into the karma of an entire day of squirreliness in Sportsball World.

The Hoosiers beat Penn State. Rutgers -- Rutgers, for God's sake! -- beat the almighty wadding out of Michigan State in East Lansing. And, much later Saturday, the Tampa Bay Rays won Game 4 of the World Series in one of the most gloriously ridiculous endings ever.

Two outs in the ninth, Rays down a run, and some guy named Brett Phillips, who might last have gotten an at-bat in the deadball era, somehow drives a pitch into right center field. 

Dodgers centerfielder Chris Taylor promptly makes like Lionel Messi and boots the ball. Kevin Kiermaier steams home with the tying run. Taylor tracks down the ball and relays it home, where catcher Will Smith drops the relay, allowing Randy Arozarena -- who had actually fallen down between third and home -- to slide headfirst across the dish with the winning run.

Here's the video evidence. I don't know how you score that, frankly. Huh? to What Th-? to Cue Up Yakety Sax, maybe.

I do know one thing, however.

Indiana is 1-0. And Penn State is 0-1.

What th--?